I am majoring in IS, with minors in Business Administration, Computer Science, and Economics. I just wanted some input on this, do you think it is bad, considering IS is usually frowned upon.
I feel I have put together 3 good minors, what do you think? Possible career paths?
I don’t…get it. The whole point of a major is to build a foundation of breadth in the broad area and a little depth in one specific part of the area. Interdisciplinary studies majors sometimes circumvent that goal, but most interdisciplinary studies degrees (from what I can tell) require or allow students to build at least two concentrations (and sometimes three) in a specific area. Basically, it seems like it’s a self-constructed major - the point is still to build breadth and depth, but perhaps in an area that your college doesn’t offer or in some field that’s truly interdisciplinary (like American studies, if your college doesn’t have that - you might draw classes from history, political science, sociology, literature, and the arts, but they’d all be focused on American issues).
Like Tufts says:
A major that is truly interdisciplinary is one that represents an integration of traditional disciplines, a melding of fields that cannot be accomplished by the usual structure of a major/minor or a double major/minor. The Interdisciplinary Studies major draws on courses from at least two of the following six areas of study: humanities, arts, social sciences, natural sciences, mathematics (quantitative), and engineering…An interdisciplinary major is not a fallback or a substitute for those who cannot decide on a major…it is a serious undertaking for the student who is committed to blending disciplines in a way that is demonstrably relevant to an identifiable area of intellectual inquiry.
Given that you have almost complete flexibility to design your own major with your own concentrations, why on earth would you also need three minors? It seems to me like the most intelligent thing to do is build an interdisciplinary major that blends coursework from computer science, business, and economics in some cohesive way - like a business analytics, informatics, or operations research-type program.
If you mean that you want to make those three concentrations/areas part of your IS major, then that could potentially be good, depending on you do it. The idea is not to just major in a bunch of stuff because you can’t decide what you want to do; the idea is to be thoughtful about the ways in which these topics hang together and influence/inform each other, and craft a course of study from that blend (with help from faculty members). Computer science and business/economics actually have a lot of ways in which they work together and might be interdisciplinary, so you could make a great interdisciplinary major out of that - but it’s going to be up to you to figure out the best way to do it.
Or why not major in one of your minor subjects and take a variety of electives to satisfy your interests in interdisciplinary studies? What is the theme of your interdisciplinary studies degree?
To get a IS degree at my school you need to chose 3 minors and those 3 minors make up the major. So my major (IS) is made up of 3 minors (business administration, econ, and computer science). I feel as society has shifted towards technology, and with many classes taken in business/econ, it wouldn’t be a bad decision.
Oh, I get it. It makes some sense, but personally I think declaring one of those as your major with one of the others as a minor would look better on a resume.
I figured that this was more like blending three concentrations in an interdisciplinary major than three separate minors. In that case, I would say
I agree with @CheddarcheeseMN. I think it would be better to major in computer science and minor in business (or, potentially, major in economics and minor in computer science) than to do an interdisciplinary major. You won’t really get the breadth in any one field.
about the IS major, the last paragraph of my post applies to your situation. These three concentrations could potentially be good, but an IS major is not intended for people who can’t decide what they want - it’s intended for people who have some kind of directed, planned way to blend those disciplines into one interdisciplinary field that couldn’t be accomplished by double-majoring or majoring + minoring in the fields.
ok thank you for the feedback. i do appreciate hearing other peoples opinions regarding my situation. thank you for your time and consideration again